Last year’s starter for the American League in the All-Star Game, Scherzer may have — with yet another dominant, two-hit performance in a 8-1 win over the Rays — served up a subtle reminder to this year’s AL manager that he’s got nothing else going on that day.

He’s certainly done nothing in his last three starts to prove that he doesn’t belong in the game for a second straight year.

Before that, it was not as certain.

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When he gave up 10 runs in four innings to the Kansas City Royals, Max Scherzer was more than miffed with himself.

He just couldn’t put anyone away in that game, and was frustrated.

In three starts since then, he’s allowed just four earned runs on 15 hits in 21 innings, striking out 28 and walking four.

And he was certainly putting people away, retiring 23 of the last 24 he faced, with only James Loney’s fourth-inning single breaking up streaks of 10 and 13 consecutive batters retired.

TOP FIRST INNING >> Brandon Jennings greeted Max Scherzer with a leadoff double, went to third on a fly out, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Evan Longoria, putting the Tigers in a 1-0 hole.

It wouldn’t last long.

BOTTOM FIRST INNING >> Three of the Tigers’ hits off Erik Bedard in the first inning were home runs — by Ian Kinsler (11), Victor Martinez (21) and Torii Hunter (10) — as the Tigers matched their season high for a game in the span of six batters.

It gave the Tigers five players with 10 or more home runs for the season, the second most in MLB.

SECOND INNING >> Miguel Cabrera extended his MLB lead in doubles to 31 with a two-out rocket to left-center, then scored on a single by J.D. Martinez, his 24th RBI in 25 games played since the start of June. It would spell the end for Erik Bedard, who was pulled to start the third, his shortest start since allowing six runs in just one-third of an inning last April.

THIRD INNING >> In the closest thing the Rays had to a rally after the first, Nick Castellanos made a diving stab to get Jennings, then shortstop Eugenio Suarez made a leaping play to snare a liner off the bat of Ben Zobrist.

SIXTH INNING >> After scoring on Hunter’s two-out RBI single in the fourth, Cabrera doubled and scored when J.D. Martinez beat out the turn of a potential inning-ending double play. It was Cabrera’s fourth run of the game, matching his career high.